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2016 Dakar Rally
The 2016 Dakar Rally is the 37th running of the event and the eighth successive year that the event was held in South America. The event started in Buenos Aires, Argentina on January 2, then run through Argentina and Bolivia. Sébastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen made their debuts in rally-raid, driving for Peugeot and MINI respectively. Summary The race started with a 11 km prologue in Buenos Aires, marked by an accident when the female Chinese driver Guo Meiling went through the spectators injuring 10 people, with the organization neutralizing the race for the remaining competitors. The first "real" stage was cancelled due to bad weather. Bikes First race whitout Cyril Despres and Marc Coma who dominated the 10 previous editions. Coma had retired in July to become the new sports director. This guaranteed a new champion in the bikes category. It was expected a full open race with a large group of candidates to the victory across KTM and Honda but soon Husqrvarna (competing with KTM bikes) reinforced by the candidate Ruben Faria join for the victory while Yamaha (which lost some of its most value competitors but assisted of the return of Hélder Rodrigues) played a secondary role. Sherco was also expecting for a surprise mainly from Alain Duclos Joan Barreda started the rally with a strong pace, as usual and won the prologue, and set the fastest time in 3rd and 4th stages, but was awarded with 2 penalties for speeding in the connections. This led to victory of the Argentinian rookie Kevin Benavides and the leadership of the privateer Štefan Svitko in the 3rd stage. In the stage 4 a double for Portugal with Paulo Gonçalves win the stage ahead of Ruben Faria, and securing the lead. Victories on stages 5 and 6 for KTM Toby Price but Gonçalves still in the lead. On stage 6, a accident lead to the retirement of Ruben Faria with a broken wrist when he was 7th overall, and Joan Barreda said lost all the chances of winning 2016 Dakar, with mechanical problems, finishing 5 hours behind Price. Quads 2016 was the return of the Patronelli brothers, who have dominated the south-American Dakar between 2010 and 2013. But it was the 2014 champion Ignacio Casale who dominated the start of the race sweeping the first stages. The rookie Brian Baragwanath was the hero of stage 3, winning after being second on stage 2. In stage 4, what could be the first win for Marcos Patronelli was later a win for Italian Juan Carlos Carignani, after the organization cancelled the last timed section. Ignacio Casale continued to lead until stopped by a fall on stage 7 which broke his clavicle and ended his rally, for the second year in a row he had retired whilst in contention for the title again, the leadership was taken over by the older of the Patronelli brothers, Alejandro Patronelli. Cars The Mini army faced the South African Toyotas and the return of Peugeot with a fully renovated 2008 DKR after the 2015 flop. Their newest recruit was the debutant and nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb. Also, the reigning manufacturers champions Mini enlisted the services of another former WRC legend, Mikko Hirvonen, to drive one of their cars. He served as another WRC to Dakar convert. The third was the SWRC champion in 2010, Xavier Pons and he drove a Ford Ranger. Despite the crash involving spectators in the prologue, Bernhard ten Brinke achieved history, as the first Dutch racer to win a stage in a car. He had also hoped to get the best overall result by a Dutchman, but it was not to be, after his Toyota caught fire on stage seven and he had to retire. The prologue was just a warm-up with the competitors finishing with little differences, but in the WRC style stages 2 and 3, the debutant Sébastien Loeb showed his class, in a 1-2 finish for Peugeot, despite the track being more favorable to the 4WD vehicles. In the high mountain stage 4, a 1-2-3 for Peugeot (first win for Stéphane Peterhansel with a Peugeot, its 33rd win in cars, 66th overall and 50th stage win for Peugeot) who secure also the fifth place, with just the Nasser Al-Attiyah's Mini in the middle, demonstrating the profit of 2008 DKR improvements. Fifth stage, one more win for Sébastien Loeb (his third) and one more 1-2-3 for Peugeot. In the sixth stage, another double for Peugeot with Peterhansel finishing ahead of Carlos Sainz. Loeb had to change two flat tires and lost the leadership to Peterhansel. Sadly, the first death of this year's edition occurred on the seventh stage of a spectator, a 63-year-old Bolivian man who had been hit by the Mitsubishi of Lionel Baud. Trucks After the dominance of Kamaz in the previous editions, it was a great surprise to see the Russian monsters in the middle of the rankings in the first stages. The race for the Dakar heavy-weights, didn't start before stage 2 (due to a car accident in Prologue which stoped the remaining competitors to race, and the cancelation of stage 1 due to bad weather). MAN dominated the first stages, with Hans Stacey setting the fasting time in stage 3, but received a 2 minute penalty. He and his team mate Peter Versluis alternated in the leadership in the first stages. Victories for the Martin Kolomý's Tatra in stage 3 and de Rooy's Iveco in stage 4 showned the competitiveness of 2016 Dakar. Former rally driver Federico Villagra with an amazing regularity was the best Iveco (and non MAN), in third position. In stage 5, the return of Kamaz to the victories, with Eduard Nikolaev. Villagra took the leadership, but lost some time in stage 6, and Hans Stacey took the victory and the race leadership. References Category:Seasons